You can find anything in Singapore.
17 March 2014 | Puteri Harbor Marina
Cloudy and thinking about raining again.
We did another trip to Singapore today and let me tell you, this is a city that has everything. Now you may have to look for it for a while, but you will find it here. Today, we needed some glue to fix our dinghy. It's made of Hypalon so it take a special glue. We'd found a company on the internet--Pamarine--that services Zodiac RIB--inflatable dinghies. We ended up taking three buses and a train and then hiking for a while to get to it but we did finally get there(just before it rained). The people could not have been nicer. While we needed some hardener for some Zodiac glue we had purchased in French Poly, Zodiac is extremely protective of their glue and will only sell it to their service centers. While he wouldn't sell us that, he did have some Bostick glue in stock that he would sell us. He also gave us a tour of the entire operations. From where they sell their dinghies to where they service their life rafts. It was great. As I said, they couldn't have been nicer.
Once we left, we grabbed another bus and headed back for the train station to get back to one of the main hubs to have lunch. Today, we decided to have lunch at McDonalds since we will be leaving here soon and it could be a while before we see one again. Today, McDonalds was having "Breakfast Day". You could order breakfast all day long. To do that, they stopped serving hamburgers!! Yep, that's right--no hamburgers of any kind!!!! But, we could get breakfast if we wanted it. As it was well after 1300, I was far more in the mood for a burger than pancakes. So, instead, since they were still selling chicken burgers, we had that. Not as good as a hamburger but it was fine.
Once we finished lunch, we grabbed another train and headed back for the Lavender station. We'd seen some upholstery store while there and since we needed some new zippers for the bimini, it was where we needed to go. We needed a good many to use some and to have some as backups incase one or two fail. One store wanted $24 for a 48 inch zipper. We walked away from there fast. We found another store that would sell them to us at .40 cents per inch. That worked out to about $18 for the zipper. Still a big price for a simple zipper. Instead of buying 10 of each of the size we needed, we just bought one of each of the two sizes we needed. We can alway either find them later in our travels in Thailand or have them mail to us from the US. At least with these two, we can fix the current problems with our bikini.
In our earlier travels off Lavander Street, we'd also visited Marintech and dumped a bunch of money on boating supplies. We decided to stop in one last time. This time, we got our for less than $50, so we are getting better. In the same building, we'd purchased some electrical fittings that we needed. We stopped in again for more fittings and after talking to the owner and one of his helpers(probably his daughter), we walked away with a solution to a problem that has bee with us for a while. On our alternator, there is a plastic plug that has two wires in it. One does nothing. The second turns on the alternator so it charges. I found a replacement for the plug in American Samoa but as a cruiser, I always like to keep another in stock. For the last year, I've not been able to find this clip. The owner of the shop suggested that since the clip entailed using a female plug going over a male plug on the alternator, why not just do away with the clip since it only used one of the two wires anyway and just get the female clips and attache a wire to it and use it instead of this big plug that doesn't really need to be there. Done!!! He sold me ten of the female clips so I'll attach some wire to a couple of the clips so I'll be ready should the current plug fail again. All I have to do is remember where I store the clips and wires.
We hopped back on the train for the central hub and then onto a bus and back across the border to Malaysia and finally back to our local bus station. This time, we didn't even bother trying to get a cab. We waited the 35 minutes till the bus was ready and hopped on it. Aggravation avoided.
During our time in Singapore, it rained off and on all day long. It did the same here at the marina which is great since they have been in drought conditions. Just glad we took our umbrellas. While we were in Singapore, I happened to pick up a newspaper and read an article about how the people in Singapore were not very helpful for foreigners. Now Tracy and I have only been to Singapore about 5 times and each time, we have found the people to be extremely helpful. Some have taken us under their wings and showed us how to get places on the trains and buses. Today, when we got off the train, we knew we needed to get a bus to get to the store we were looking for. One of the people at the train station gave us directions and the bus number that would take us to the store or at least get us close. When we left the train station, another man seeing us look a bit lost showed us where to go to find the bus and a third walked with us and pointed out the way so we would not get lost. In our travels, we have found just about everyone(ok, not so much taxi drivers) to be very helpful and courteous to us bending over backwards to help us when we needed it or even looked like we needed it. People back home thought we were crazy for doing this, but the people we have met have made this a incredible journey. Nuts to the person that wrote the article about the people in Singapore. They couldn't have gotten it more wrong if they tried.